


Ask Me

by Rise Up Ting Ting Like Glitter (Wiggle)



Series: Winteriron Winter Stockings 2021 [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Bucky as James, HEA, In your future, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Stealing your soulmate, There might be some salt about Steve Rogers as a soulmate, does this count as not steve rogers friendly?, moderate salt content, team Bucky living his best life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-18 16:34:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29121264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiggle/pseuds/Rise%20Up%20Ting%20Ting%20Like%20Glitter
Summary: Tony knows that having Steve Rogers' name on his arm ends in disaster. Happily ever afters are not for Starks.James has had seven decades of being told what to do and he's full up, thanks. The universe might have printed Steve Rogers down his arm, but it's Tony he wants.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Winteriron Winter Stockings 2021 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2153376
Comments: 23
Kudos: 160
Collections: Winteriron Winter Stockings 2020





	Ask Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [feignedsobriquet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feignedsobriquet/gifts).
  * In response to a prompt by [feignedsobriquet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/feignedsobriquet/pseuds/feignedsobriquet) in the [winteriron_winter_stockings_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/winteriron_winter_stockings_2020) collection. 



> For feignedsobriquet, who wanted a not Steve Rogers friendly soulmate AU.

James was unwanted. The twinkling skyline of nighttime New York came clear through the glass, leaving the space open and vulnerable. Awareness of it crawled over his skin. Those windows had been frosted earlier, when he was wanted, safe. The way Tony had kept them for the nine months James had lurked around the Avengers in the tower. His heart slammed in his chest. It was just a window.

Tony sat alone, one leg cocked over his knee while his fingers dragged back and forth over his mouth and he stared at nothing. Only the scrape of hand against skin interrupted the silence.

“Did Jarvis tell you I was coming?”

His question landed like the first shell of an air raid and the same sense of impending dread he remembered from the war pressed against his ears and chest.

The scraping stopped, and Tony waved the windows opaque. Something cool and dangerously seductive coursed down James' spine, easing the clench of his shoulders. “He knows I’m here,” James tried again.

“He knows you’re here.” There was no inflection, and it wasn’t a question. The ‘he’ they were speaking of had his name stamped down James' remaining forearm. It’s twin laced down Tony’s. 

Steve Rogers. 

Pressed into James' skin like a mark of ownership, bold, block letters, proud and immovable was Steve Rogers. Tony’s scratched over his skin, hard to look at. The sound of another time scrabbled through his head when he tried, the electric scream of a mind wipe raging in his ears. Steve Rogers.

“I’m not sorry, Tony. I—” 

“You what?” Tony surged to his feet and stalked towards him. “You thought maybe that you’ve been a whole person for—” Tony stopped, eyes skidding away from the holes they were boring in James' face, and his hand reached for— “Nine months. Nine _months_. And the greatest gift a person can have, the thing that dragged you out of seven decades of hard restarts and Hydra’s hand stroking your colon, you tossed aside because.” Tony’s eyes landed on James' again. 

“Because of me.” The corner of Tony’s mouth pinched up, the sick little snarl his face twisted into when he especially hated himself. That was wrong. Tony had given him space, freedom, light. Some cosmic force may have painted Steve’s name on his arm, but they hadn’t asked first.

“He doesn’t see me.” 

“The Ghost of Bucky Past,” Tony swallowed, the fight leaking out of him. He waved half-heartedly toward the door. “Whatever, you’re forgiven.” 

James didn’t move. “I’m not looking for forgiveness.” Whatever the name denting its way down his flesh was supposed to mean, it was Tony who listened and didn’t correct with eyes too understanding and wrong. Tony who met James and spent time getting to know him. It was Tony’s voice and Tony’s presence that filled in all the gaps between the Soldier and Bucky and James.

Steve might have eight inches of James’ forearm and a head full of memories of the guy he used to be, but if James didn’t fuck this up Tony would have the rest.

“You shouldn’t have kissed me.” Tony stared at the open doorway, waiting for him to leave.

“No?” James asked. A fold of him, thin and beaten like good steel, knew how to handle this. “Were you going to do it?”

“Why?” Tony stopped looking away. His eyes searched James’ face, and if it wasn’t so dark he might have seen the heat pinking James’ skin, the shine of sweat. 

Tony waved his arm between their faces when he didn’t answer, covered as always, hiding the name scratched there.

“He’s never going to look at you.” 

Tony’s face blanched, and James knew, because _he_ listened, that Tony was thinking of his parents. Of their conflagration of a soulmating. Of the conclusion he’d drawn that no one could ever want him, especially if they knew him. “Ask me how I know. Ask me how I know that you don't want him too.” If only he could use the knowledge that Tony wouldn’t as proof. “I’m always looking, I won’t claim to see more than you allow, but I’m always looking. Tell him Jarvis.”

“Sir, there does appear to be—”

“Mute.”

“That won’t work on me.” James said, the space between them vanishing. Tony leaned in, and James stepped back, hoping. 

Tony followed.

“I’ve got an idea of how you could shut me up though.” This Steve would have seen. This he would have weaponized, used against him. Because this? The pause in his speech, the purr in his tone, the curve his lips tugged onto his face. This was all Bucky Barnes. But James didn’t mind. Not with Tony. Not if it could catch him Tony.

“Why?” Tony asked again when James was pressed into the door jamb and Tony was pressed against him, the door yawning open next to them. Anyone could see. This wasn’t clandestine anymore.

“I asked him to call me James.”

“I’m sure that went well.” Tony pulled back, but James reached out, metal hand cupped open, waiting. Tony's fingertips brushed his, the calloused pads tentative, and James hooked a faint bend into his last knuckle, a hint, a prayer. 

“You spent nine months making sure I knew I didn't have to choose him. That I could choose me. There’s no either or. You may not want me, but he can’t have me. ”

“You’ll regret this.” Tony said, folding his hand into James' until they were coiled together. He sounded like himself again.

James put his free hand on Tony’s hip to keep him from getting away. “You know who I never had to ask?”

“Hardly fair.” Soft wisps of air puffed against James’ lips as Tony leaned back in. “I asked you first.” 

“Now I’m asking you. Kiss me?”


End file.
